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Getting kids to eat veggies - the sneaky way

Any parent will tell you there's nothing new about sneaking
vegetables into your kids' food.

Whether it's grating carrots into the bolognaise sauce or
secreting zucchini into your meatballs, most parents will plead
guilty to committing an act of culinary subterfuge at some
stage.

That's the premise of a new cookbook for children,
Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get You Kids to Eat
Good Food, by Jessica Seinfeld (who also happens to be the wife
of actor Jerry Seinfeld).

The book has attracted some buzz in the US because of claims the
author plagiarised another cookbook, The Sneaky Chef: Simple
Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids Favourite Meals, by
Missy Chase Lapin.

But the controversy doesn't end there, according to Australian
child and nutrition experts.

Deceptively Delicious advocates the "trojan horse" approach to
food, with recipes like chocolate pudding with avocado and
chocolate chip cooks with chickpeas - but not everyone thinks
hiding veggies in chocolate pudding is a good idea.

"It's pretty common for children between the ages of six and ten
to be really resistant to eating their vegetables," she says.

"They can build up to a fear or phobia which can lead to major
tantrums, with kids basically turning upside down on their chairs
to avoid eating broccoli."

But tricking them by hiding vegies in other foods can backfire,
she warns.

"If the food tastes fine and the kids don't notice the taste of
the vegetables being hidden inside, then it's a good idea," O'Brien
says.

But "the risk is they will notice the taste, and then they'll
feel deceived and maybe distrustful about future meals."

O'Brien says parents needn't get worked up if kids are just
refusing a few different types of vegetables - instead, they should
work around a child's particular taste.

Spokeswoman for the Dieticians Association of Australia, Julie
Gilbert, a mother of four, says Deceptively Delicious has "a
definite value for a parent to ensure their child gets the
nutrition they need from eating vegetables".

But she says "In terms of long-term health, and encouraging
children to eat vegetables on a regular basis, I think it's going
to fall short.

"Kids need to identify that vegetables are an everyday food. If
they don't recognise it, how can they identify it's part of
everyday eating?"

Gilbert says she believes Deceptively Delicious is
primarily designed to make parents feel good, but adds parents need
to do more than hide beetroot in chocolate cake.

"Eventually this child has to leave home as a young adult, and
they need to know how to cook and how to prepare food."

Gilbert says it helps to get kids involved in food preparation,
so they get to know different tastes and become familiar with
ingredients.

Many of the recipes are carbohydrate-loaded and quite high in
fat, and seem to promote the idea that it's OK to feed kids
chocolate as long as you include a few spoonfuls of carrot,
beetroot or avocado puree.

It's also a little worrying to see how little the "deceptive"
component of some recipes actually is.

Given that the author is American, Australian readers would
expect the odd Americanism.

But you wonder why the publishers of Seinfeld's book didn't take
the time to include metric measurements - or at least a conversion
table - in the book's Australian version.

And there are a few unfamiliar ingredients to confuse local
cooks - including turkey bacon, flaxseed meal and frozen orange
juice concentrate.

Even though none of the recipes take much time, it would have
been useful to indicate which can be made in bulk, then frozen in
kid-sized portions.

But Seinfeld does get points for indicating which of the dishes
are suitable to be included in a packed lunch.

Despite its shortcomings, Deceptively Delicious appears
to have struck a chord online, and is the topic of discussion on a
number of parenting blogs.

One (almostsomewhatpositive.blogspot.com) said her household of
picky eaters loved the whole meal she cooked for them. But another
(beingamomisgreat.wordpress.com) wrote that her family told her
they'd prefer real vegetables to "pureed goop". Another who tried
out the Chocolate brownies with pureed spinach
(debbieschroeder.typepad.com/my-weblog) said they still smelled
like spinach.

While Lapine's lawsuit against Seinfeld is before the courts in
the US, it appears that the jury is still out when it comes to the
messages her book contains about kids and healthy eating.